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Birds and Beasts of Ancient Mesoamerica links Precolumbian animal imagery with scientific data related to animal morphology and behavior, providing in-depth studies of the symbolic importance of animals and birds in Postclassic period Mesoamerica. Representations of animal deities in Mesoamerica can be traced back at least to Middle Preclassic Olmec murals, stone carvings, and portable art such as lapidary work and ceramics. Throughout the history of Mesoamerica real animals were merged with fantastical creatures, creating zoological oddities not unlike medieval European bestiaries. According to Spanish chroniclers, the Aztec emperor was known to keep exotic animals in royal aviaries and zoo...
The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, the first of its kind, provides a current overview of recent research on the Aztec empire, the best documented prehispanic society in the Americas. Chapters span from the establishment of Aztec city-states to the encounter with the Spanish empire and the Colonial period that shaped the modern world. Articles in the Handbook take up new research trends and methodologies and current debates. The Handbook articles are divided into seven parts. Part I, Archaeology of the Aztecs, introduces the Aztecs, as well as Aztec studies today, including the recent practice of archaeology, ethnohistory, museum studies, and conservation. The articles in Part II, Historical ...
"As we enter the material worlds of Spanish colonizers, we should get to know a little bit about the colonizers themselves. In this chapter, I characterize the economic standing of colonizers, focusing on their wealth and the kinds of things on which they spent or invested their money. To address issues of wealth, it will be necessary to study the kinds of coin and other media of exchange that were in use in sixteenth-century Mexico City. The people compiling the probate inventories that form the basis of this study measured and recorded the value of each item in material terms: the amount of gold that would be necessary to purchase a person's belongings. They translated each decedent's net worth into coin in official documents, with the intent of communicating and sending the value of the decedent's belongings to his or her family in Spain. Calculating the value of a decedent's belongings as gold also helped the church and the Spanish crown collect some revenue from a person's estate, through donations to the church and taxes to the king"--
The Aztecs brings to life one of the best-known indigenous civilizations of the Americas in a vivid, comprehensive account of the ancient Aztecs. A thorough examination of Aztec origins and civilization including religion, science, and thought Incorporates the latest archaeological excavations and research into explanations of the Spanish conquest and the continuity of Aztec culture in Central Mexico Expanded coverage includes key topics such as writing, music, royal tombs, and Aztec predictions of the end of the world
From May 31st to June 4th, 2016, the 7th International European conference on pre-Columbian textiles was held in Copenhagen. This volume unites seven original articles on pre-Columbian textiles from Mexico, which compare information on 20th century finds first described by Alba Guadelupe Mastache with that from previously unpublished finds and recently discovered contexts. A unique chapter presents the technical analysis and replication of a pre-Columbian tunic recovered in a cave site in Arizona, at the northern margins of the Mesoamerican interaction sphere. Thirteen articles on archaeological textiles from the central Andes include analysis of both textile assemblages preserved in museum collections and those recovered during recent fieldwork in archaeological sites of the Andean desert coast. These include textile assemblages representing the Initial and Formative Periods, Paracas and Nasca contexts, the Middle Horizon, diverse late Intermediate Period assemblages and emblematic Inca garments.
This volume accompanies a major international loan exhibition featuring more than three hundred works of art, many rarely or never before seen in the United States. It traces the development of gold working and other luxury arts in the Americas from antiquity until the arrival of Europeans in the early sixteenth century. Presenting spectacular works from recent excavations in Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico, this exhibition focuses on specific places and times—crucibles of innovation—where artistic exchange, rivalry, and creativity led to the production of some of the greatest works of art known from the ancient Americas. The book and exhibition explore not only...
The articles in this book conceptualize the ancient New World through new and varied approaches, from iconography to the history of anthropology. The many essays in this volume explore the vast vista of the Pre-Columbian world, including representations of history, memory, and knowledge in Andean visual imagery and Pre-Columbian narrative, the ideology of rain making, and Maya beliefs about animal transformations.
An ethnographic study based on decades of field research, Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain explores five sacred journeys to the peaks of venerated mountains undertaken by Nahua people living in northern Veracruz, Mexico. Punctuated with elaborate ritual offerings dedicated to the forces responsible for rain, seeds, crop fertility, and the well-being of all people, these pilgrimages are the highest and most elaborate form of Nahua devotion and reveal a sophisticated religious philosophy that places human beings in intimate contact with what Westerners call the forces of nature. Alan and Pamela Sandstrom document them for the younger Nahua generation, who live in a world where many are lured away...
Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems challenges the adequacy of Western academic views on what writing is and explores how they can be expanded by analyzing the sophisticated graphic communication systems found in Central Mesoamerica and Andean South America. By examining case studies from across the Americas, the authors pursue an enhanced understanding of Native American graphic communication systems and how the study of graphic expression can provide insight into ancient cultures and societies, expressed in indigenous words. Focusing on examples from Central Mexico and the Andes, the authors explore the overlap among writing, graphic expression, and orality in indigenous societies, in...